Australia can dispense with ticker-tape parades and civic receptions to honour its Ashes-winning cricketers, because any contrived celebration will surely pale alongside this week's events at the MCG.
The Test series that has set attendance records in Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth will attract its biggest crowd even though the fate of the tiny terracotta urn has been emphatically decided.
About 96,000 are expected to defy today's cool weather and threats of rain and cram the refurbished stadium to create a new record turn-out at a single day's Test cricket. The existing mark is 90,800 set at the same ground on day two of the Australia-West Indies fifth Test in 1961. The 70-year-old record for the largest total Test attendance (350,354) might also be threatened if the match lasts its scheduled five days.
The full house will provide a grand Melbourne send-off for retiring bowling greats Shane Warne and Glenn McGrath, and ensure the end of a remarkable era in Australian cricket is afforded a suitably historic final chapter.
These final Tests in Melbourne and Sydney represent the last chance for many Australians to see the most successful Test cricket team of any era before it is irrevocably recast.
While captain Ricky Ponting and coach John Buchanan told the team after last Saturday's training session the remaining Tests were not tribute matches but important games in their own right, the nation's focus will remain on Warne and McGrath.
But those with an eye to Australian cricket's short-term future might occasionally let their gaze shift to the man who is expected to shoulder the greatest burden of expectation once the record-breaking duo exits the stage in Sydney next week.
Ponting yesterday identified Brett Lee as the man he wants to become Australia's premier strike weapon when he no longer has the luxury of turning to McGrath's unrelenting stinginess and Warne's undisputed genius.
"Brett might have to stand up a bit more as a real strike, wicket-taking option," Ponting said yesterday.
"What Brett has done in one-day cricket and Test cricket over the last few years is get early wickets with that brand new ball by swinging it at express pace.
"That's what his game is all about, and he probably hasn't done that as much as he would have liked in the first few games (of this Ashes series).
"I've got no doubt, going forward, that he's going to be that wicket-taking option that the team needs."
One of the hallmarks of Ponting's captaincy - as it was with his predecessor, Steve Waugh - is that he will always publicly back his players to perform regardless of their recent returns or criticism from others.
And, although Lee looked to have finally arrived as a world-class new-ball bowler when McGrath was absent for periods in England (in 2005) and South Africa (this year), his regression this summer has become a concern.
His return of eight wickets at 58.38 is the leanest of Australia's specialist bowlers and hardly what was expected when he was installed as spearhead and entrusted with the new ball ahead of McGrath at the outset of the series.
Lee has struggled to generate swing with the new ball and the old apart from a couple of spells in England's second innings in Adelaide and Perth.
His low action also means he skids through rather than extracts bounce, and that shortcoming on flat pitches has been highlighted by the disconcerting lift that England pair Steve Harmison and Andrew Flintoff often generate.
"He (Lee) would be a little disappointed with that," Ponting said.
"He's worked really hard in the last two days. He's worked on his run-up a bit because he's felt that he's been a little bit flat in his delivery stride and struggled for a bit of rhythm in the first few Tests.
"I think we saw in Perth, particularly in the second innings, where he started to swing the new ball again, which is really pleasing. That goes to show that some of his technique things are starting to pay off."
Lee faces a tough challenge when Australia first enters its post Warne and McGrath Test era at the beginning of the next Australian summer.
Given the flat, slow nature of Australian pitches these days, he will be sorely tested by the batting strength of the Sri Lankan and Indian touring teams, and then will tackle equally unforgiving tracks in Pakistan and the West Indies in quick succession.
Without McGrath and Warne to stem the flow of runs, Ponting might find Test matches getting away from him unless his strike bowler can also play a negating role when required.
Of all bowlers with 200 Test wickets or more, none has conceded runs at more than Lee's current mark of 59.83 per 100 balls bowled. By contrast, McGrath's economy rate is 41.79 while Warne's is 44.20.
"If there's a time when I need some wickets, I'll always go to the best bowlers," Ponting said yesterday.
"In Perth last week, starting on that fourth day after lunch when the (Alastair Cook-Ian Bell) partnership was going I went back to McGrath and Warne straight away because you think that McGrath can tie up an end and Warnie's a good chance of taking wickets.
"It's not because it's those two (names), it's because they're the best bowlers. So I'll just have to go to the best bowlers (in the future) and hopefully they can do what I ask them to."
In his first seven Tests, Stuart Clark has been such a revelation with 37 wickets at 18.62 (economy rate 42.17) that Ponting has endorsed the 31-year-old to take over McGrath's role when the veteran seamer retires.
Clark was the only bowler to attend yesterday's rain-affected optional training session at the MCG after he was laid low by a gastric virus on Christmas Eve.
He was unable to attend a team get together at Warne's bayside home that evening, but he batted and bowled in the nets yesterday morning and declared himself fit to play.
The MCG pitch, with a healthy cover of grass, is expected to favour Clark's seam-up bowling style and should also provide a welcome tonic for Lee, who has worked intently with bowling coach Troy Cooley since the Perth Test.
Ponting believes, with residual moisture in the surface and cool, damp conditions forecast for much of the match, the pitch will offer assistance to new-ball bowlers throughout the match.
For that reason, the captain who wins the toss might be tempted to bowl first.
- ANDREW RAMSEY